This disclosure relates to a waste handling system, such as a urine stowage system for a spacecraft.
Excluding diapers, there are currently two solutions regarding urine management in orbit. The first solution is to vent the urine overboard, which has been employed on the Shuttle Orbiter and other prior United States spaceships. The second solution is to stow the urine on board, which has been employed in the Soviet/Russian Soyuz spaceship and the International Space Station. Stowing urine on board has become the desired approach for new spacecraft.
On the Soyuz spaceship, urine is absorbed by a product placed inside of a canister. The canister is emptied after return to Earth, limiting urine stowage to the volume of the canister. In the International Space Station, the urine is pumped directly to a urine processor, where urine is processed and plumbed to the water processor for further processing to produce potable water.